


Opportunity

by orphan_account



Category: Avatar: Legend of Korra, Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Bitterness, Earth Kingdom, Gen, Humor, Old Age, Poverty, Republic City
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-07-18
Updated: 2012-07-18
Packaged: 2017-11-10 05:31:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/462713
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A one-shot I wrote for a contest on deviantART. It features Hasook's kickass grandmother and her soured outlook on life, family, Republic City, and kids these days.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Opportunity

**Author's Note:**

> Interestingly enough, Nukka started life as an RP character during the original events of the series. Now that Legend of Korra has rolled around, I decided to stick with her and aged her up accordingly.

'O, Republic City! A place of industry! A place of technology! A place of opportunity! A place of tolerance! A city where benders and non-benders - of all nations - could come to understand each other and live in harmonious peace with one another.

Nukka was coming to realize exactly how much of that government drivel was complete and utter yak dung, just as some hoity-toity teenager almost sideswiped her with his Satomobile full of promiscuous floozies and illegal alcohol. She fell into a puddle of sewage and waited a moment for somebody to remember their manners long enough to help the eighty-year-old woman out of the gutter before doing it herself. Feeling vindictive, she sent a sloppy blast of liquid waste after the young hooligan, but missed as he turned around the corner. It instead landed on a Cabbage Corp salesman - the one who had been badgering her for weeks to buy one of his metal deathtraps. Eh, just as good.

The old woman continued down the streets of Koala Otter Borough at her own hobbling pace, making anyone who tried to push and jostle past her slip with a little spurt of ice. She winced in pain every time. Damn bending was killing her arthritics riddled joints. But it was worth it to see those foppish boys flip head-over-heals onto their greasy, styled hair, and to see those uncouth girls with their fashionably revealing skirts rip their thin stockings on the pavement. Yes, other people's misery was certainly her greatest joy in her old age.

Eventually, Nukka reached her tenement building and arduously climbed the four flights of stairs to her dingy, one-bedroom apartment. The smell on her floor was horrifying. The scent of unwashed bodies, unfortunately authentic foreign food, and the not-so-subtle rotting stench coming from the bathroom at the end of the hall would've made her hair turn white, if it wasn't already. She was going to have a long, angry talk with the landlord - if he ever showed his rat-like face longer than the time it took to shake down his tenets for rent. She fumbled with the key for a moment - cursing her old age, only to be greeted by her only daughter's tired, sweating face as she was able to turn it in the lock.

"Hasook's lost another job, I take it." Nukka said as she pushed aside her daughter - Jaya - to step into living room, making sure to carefully perch her large blue coat precariously on top of a stack of bills.

Jaya sighed, brought her mother a chipped cup of cheap tea, and sat at the rickety low table, "He'll get another one, Mother. He always does."

The elderly woman snorted before gently and stiffly lowering herself down to sit facing her daughter. She traced a gnarled finger around the rim of the cup before taking a swig and recoiling in disgust.

"This tastes like armadillo wolf piss, and I should know." Nukka spat dismissively before setting her tea cup back down.

"Mother..." her daughter grumbled disapprovingly, as if SHE was the one with eighty-some-odd years on the planet.

"So, where's that no-good grandson of mine, anyways? Off drowning himself with the water-bending I taught him?"

Jaya shook her head slowly, "You should be nicer to Hasook, you know. He's your only grandchild, and it's been very hard on all of us to see you treat him this way."

Another snort, "Hasook's a good enough kid, alright? You happy? He just needs to be treated a little roughly. Motivation, you see. That's how my parents up in the North Pole treated me, and I turned out... Well, don't use me as an example, obviously. If I had turned out alright, we wouldn't be living in a place where the roaches are the size of cart wheels, and the triads are busting in shop windows like a tiger seal busts in otter penguin skulls."

Her daughter made a face, disgusted by that last grisly metaphor, and said simply, "I think we're doing just fine as we are."

Nukka grinned widely, her wrinkles crunching together to make room, and put a hand on Jaya's shoulder, "That a girl! You lie like a Fire Nation officer! I almost believed you too. Nice to see that something of your father, besides his pigheadedness, has passed on."

"I'll take that as a compliment, Mother." The younger woman said primly.

After a few more minutes of stilted silence, there was a pounding knock on the door which almost shook the teacups right off the table.

"That's your precious Hasook, Jaya. So kind of him to shift our belongings a little to the left, don't you think?"

Jaya rolled her eyes, walked over, and opened the door. There stood her son, more energetic and excited than she had ever seen him before.

"I got a new job!" He shouted, making his grandmother clap her hands over her ears.

"Already?" said his mother, perking up quite a bit at this news,"Does it pay well?"

"Is it real?" Nukka asked scathingly as she cleaned her nails with her teeth absentmindedly.

Hasook shot her a dirty look and pulled out a strange set of clothes from behind his back - an odd looking red and white jumpsuit, a set of pads, a helmet, and a blue sash.

His mother's face immediately fell as she sputtered, "You...You joined a pro-bending team? Don't you have any idea of how dangerous that is? Don't you know that it takes hours of practice? Don't you know that you don't get PAID?"

"Yeah," he said, still a little excited, "But there's this grand prize and it's a lot of money and we could live like kings for the rest of our lives if we win and-"

Jaya became red-faced in anger and shouted to interrupt her son, "I WON'T ALLOW IT, HASOOK! YOU'RE NOT GOING OUT THERE AND ENDANGERING YOURSELF JUST TO WIN AT A SILLY LITTLE GAME! YOU MARCH RIGHT BACK TO THAT STADIUM AND TELL THE REST OF THE IDIOTS ON YOUR TEAM THAT YOU ARE NOT, I REPEAT, NOT GOING TO BE ON THEIR PRO-BENDING TEAM!"

The room was relatively silent - only the shouting of other tenets filled the awkward and shocked pause. The old woman caught her grandson's eye. He looked motivated, ready for a purpose. Would pro-bending give him that chance? Would it give him the opportunity to find his calling in life? 

And then, Nukka removed her nails from her mouth and said, "I don't see what's wrong with Hasook being on a pro-bending team. It'll put hair on his chest, and he's not going to get hurt with all that namby-pamby safety gear. Besides, the kid could do with getting knocked around a little. He's too coddled anyways."

Her daughter turned to her with a pleading look in her eye, anger temporarily deflated, but she put up a shriveled hand to stop her.

"This is my home, even if I'm not exactly proud of it. If you want to continue living under my roof, you'll do as I say and respect Hasook's decision." the old woman stated sharply before turning to her grandson, "And you better be damn good at this pro-bending gig or, so help me, I'll bring out the paddle and spank you until you're blacker than a politician's heart and bluer than the spirits-be-damned sky."

As Hasook thanked her and Jaya shot daggers at her, Nukka began to drink her tea once more and silently thanked Republic City - place of opportunity - for finally getting her good-for-nothing, layabout grandson motivated.


End file.
